As Searle pointed out: solipsism refutes itself. If you're a solipsist, you don't believe this forum and its people actually exist. Expecting that a second solipsist shows up implies wanting solipsism to be proven false.

He is not correct. You need to prove that consciousness is needed for any act.

Last edited by bahman on Thu Nov 30, 2017 7:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

As Searle pointed out: solipsism refutes itself. If you're a solipsist, you don't believe this forum and its people actually exist. Expecting that a second solipsist shows up implies wanting solipsism to be proven false.

You can ask that the justifications for all beliefs be made explicit. Solipsism is the default belief when assumptions and assertions are pared back to a minimum. Then beliefs beyond solipsism will need to be justified. These justifications turn out to be sketchy. Descartes was just simply correct that none of the experience one has really tells you anything about the *nature* of that experience - whether it comes from a multi-dimensional physical world, the spell of a demon, a complex VR program - to say nothing of the question of whether the others you encounter in that world have minds of their own or not.

As Searle pointed out: solipsism refutes itself. If you're a solipsist, you don't believe this forum and its people actually exist. Expecting that a second solipsist shows up implies wanting solipsism to be proven false.

If a second solipsist turns up then they turn up in my consciousness, so - in that sense - they exist. What the solipsist questions is what it means to claim some hypothetical solipsist that has no presence in consciousness 'exists'.

If things that are present in our consciousness exist - and also things which do not have presence in our consciousness exist - then what does 'exist' mean? How could it be possible to claim that anything did not exist?

Any solipsist will have refuted him/herself the minute he or she thinks something other than his/her consciousness exist.

As Searle pointed out: solipsism refutes itself. If you're a solipsist, you don't believe this forum and its people actually exist. Expecting that a second solipsist shows up implies wanting solipsism to be proven false.

He is not correct. You need to prove that consciousness is needed for any act.

Well, I don't need to prove anything. That's what comes up under the solipsist's own terms.

If one is a solipsist, do they need to do anything? Say actually work out the world they wish, or desire to have. IF they have it all already in their own little cave. There is no need to work it out. And here's a practical test to try it out, try sitting in a room, by oneself (for that's what solipsism is isn't it? You're all there is), with no stimulation, and effective total isolation. No phones, no tv, no internet, no books, no music, no sounds...just you...the walls, and your own internal thoughts. It'd be like a lovely conversation with yourself ...which you already do. And try to "entertain" yourself for as many hours as you can. I'd say avoid doing this for 72+ hrs because from firsthand experience, you'll start talking to yourself, and the "Other" will truly leave you alone for as long as you need. Unless it's someone, or something that cares about you. Thus if you "attempt to save yourself from yourself" are you really all that there is? Or if you abandon yourself to the point where you're hospitalized, you have to ask, "What interjected?"

Don't know if it'll work or not for the poster, but it sure as hell worked for me. Friggen hated the circular logic that ensured thinking that way. Especially with the "Platonic Ideal", and trying to "work" towards that. An ideal is a projection towards some goal, and solipsism from my point of view is a negation of that projection/ideal. It essentially says, I am all done, and I have nothing left to do...thus it starts leading down to despair/depression...from my experiences. Yours may vary, but have fun!

Or if you're feeling metaphysical, consider a Boltzmann brain that spontaneously emerged in the "void of space", and you are said brain. Perhaps you're making up an entire narrative to create, and make "sense" of a world that you can't affect! It's just as fun!

If one is all that there is in existence, solipsism, that means you are the sole source of the Problem of Evil in your existence. Every rape, every murder, every unpleasant thing that has ever happened to you, was you doing it to yourself. Simply because there is no one else in your little glass box. You have raped yourself, you have murdered yourself, and you have reproduced with yourself simply to keep yourself "entertained"..., and to keep "life" going. Although you conveniently forget this every time it happens because well....you really don't want to hurt yourself. It's all for amusement, right?

As Searle pointed out: solipsism refutes itself. If you're a solipsist, you don't believe this forum and its people actually exist. Expecting that a second solipsist shows up implies wanting solipsism to be proven false.

If a second solipsist turns up then they turn up in my consciousness, so - in that sense - they exist. What the solipsist questions is what it means to claim some hypothetical solipsist that has no presence in consciousness 'exists'.

If things that are present in our consciousness exist - and also things which do not have presence in our consciousness exist - then what does 'exist' mean? How could it be possible to claim that anything did not exist?

Any solipsist will have refuted him/herself the minute he or she thinks something other than his/her consciousness exist.

You have a thought about a dog - is that image separate from your consciousness or is it within your consciousness? Nothing is refuted.

As Searle pointed out: solipsism refutes itself. If you're a solipsist, you don't believe this forum and its people actually exist. Expecting that a second solipsist shows up implies wanting solipsism to be proven false.

Solipsism is a little like the Big Bang Theory. If you follow theory to its logical conclusion, then everything began with a singularity. But an infintesimal singularity makes no sense (no sense can be made of it). When you follow certain philosophical theories to their logical conclusions, solipsism follows logically; but solipsism itself makes no sense. Perhaps we should rethink the wisdom of following things to logical conclusions.

You have a thought about a dog - is that image separate from your consciousness or is it within your consciousness? Nothing is refuted.

Let's ask the solipsist. He or she believes that there's no real dog independent of his/her consciousness. So, if they engage in any search of a real dog (something separate from their consciousness), there's a problem with their commitment to solipsism. And now even worse: he or she believes that there's no real person independent of his/her consciousness, which is the same as saying that they believe there can't be real solipsists out there. If they don't believe there can be real solipsists out there, who are they trying to convince? What for?

You have a thought about a dog - is that image separate from your consciousness or is it within your consciousness? Nothing is refuted.

Let's ask the solipsist. He or she believes that there's no real dog independent of his/her consciousness. So, if they engage in any search of a real dog (something separate from their consciousness), there's a problem with their commitment to solipsism. And now even worse: he or she believes that there's no real person independent of his/her consciousness, which is the same as saying that they believe there can't be real solipsists out there. If they don't believe there can be real solipsists out there, who are they trying to convince? What for?

One can believe in a very minimal "out there" - does a dream about searching for a dog constitute proof of the non-self? Or just reaches of the mind which are capable of generating surprise to the conscious mind.

Let's ask the solipsist. He or she believes that there's no real dog independent of his/her consciousness.

Or we can ask the non-solipsist to tell us something about some dog they are not conscious of yet still assert is 'real'.

How could we know there's a 'real' dog out there, except via our own consciousness?

I think we have gone through this already, haven't we? In that thread where you argued for the same point of view, but denied being a solipsist.

Anyway, there are many ways one can test the objective existence of something. I could ask someone to take a video of a dog today, without showing it to me. Then I would see the dog the next day and the other day I, along with someone else, would be shown many videos of dogs. This other person will see the real dog, too, and then we would compare impressions, based on the fact that 1) we have seen the dog in different acts of perceptions, 2) we don't know what each of us have seen, and 3) there's another independent record of how the dog is. The likelihood of all these data about the dog coinciding in the same illusory perception is zero. Even if one thought all is a clever scheme from one's own mind, in other words, a self-deception, a convincing explanation will have to be given as to how can this mind divide itself in multiple independent minds, each one having different recollections of perceived things, so that one mind doesn't know what the other thinks.